Kittatinny Valley

Kittatinny Valley is a section of the Great Appalachian Valley in northwestern New Jersey, lying between Kittatinny Mountain to the northwest and the New Jersey Highlands to the southeast, in Sussex and Warren counties. It is about 64 kilometers long and 16 to 21 kilometers wide, floored mainly by Martinsburg Formation shale and slate alongside Kittatinny and Jacksonburg limestone. The valley and its bordering ridge trace back to the Taconic Orogeny around 450 million years ago, when a volcanic island arc collided with proto-North America, with a later continental collision around 400 million years ago folding and faulting the rock into its present form. During the Wisconsin glaciation, ice up to 300 meters thick covered the valley and left behind end moraines, eskers, and lakes such as Culver's Lake and the 110-foot-deep Lake Aeroflex; today the Paulinskill, Wallkill, and Pequest rivers drain the valley. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/